Scientists based in Tokyo discovered Drosophila flies, specifically, may lack long-term memory or LTM of a distressing or hurtful experience when they are kept to stay in the dark. This was the environmental light's first confirmation as it played a role in the maintenance of LTM.
Conducting their study at the Tokyo Metropolitan University, the team of scientists identified the particular molecular mechanism, too that was responsible for such an impact.
Science experts have that it is undeniably difficult to delete or remove LTMs. This work, they add, may result in innovative handlings for those with the trauma, probably, even the omission of life-changing experiences and memories filled with traumas.
More so, an individual can't recall everything that happens in one day. However, a particularly surprising occurrence may be merged into his LTM, whereby, as indicated in SciTechDaily, "new proteins are synthesized and the neuronal circuits" in his brain are adjusted and altered.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Triggered
Such traumatic experiences or memories may be demoralizing to a person who has them, possibly triggering post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Nevertheless as far as the physiological aspect is concerned, having memories retained is quite different from going through the trivial process.
Additionally, there is a need for active maintenance to keep the changes that protect from the continual rearrangement of cellular, as well as the living organism's renewal.
Despite the essentiality of carefully understanding the manner a memory is functioning in the human, the device or instrument by which this takes place hasn't been understood yet, not to mention, is a main for the present time's neuroscience.
It is a common knowledge that light, specifically the night-and-day cycle, plays a vital role in the regulation of animal physiology. Examples of these include cognition, circadian rhythm, and mood.
How about the LTM? In response to this, a research team headed by Tokyo Metropolitan University Professor, Takaomi Sakai, set out to research how exposure to light, impacts the diurnal Drosophila flies.
As an example of trauma or LTM, the researchers used the "courtship conditioning paradigm" from which the male flies get exposed to "female flies which have already mated."
Mated female flies are considered as unwilling and they wield stress on male flies where they didn't succeed to mate. Once the male flies' stress has been devoted to LTM, they don't give courtship to female a try flies anymore, even when the latter is found to have never mated.
In connection with the research, the researchers found that male flies that were conditioned and kept in the dark for two or more consecutive days displayed any unwillingness to their mate.
Those on the usual day-night cycle, on the other hand, did.
LTM Retention through Environmental Light
The said research finding clearly presented that the LTM retention was made possible through the environmental light that somehow modified it.
Essentially too, this was not because of lack of sleep especially that the diurnal flies used in this study were a bit sleep-deprived to match with the other flies which stayed in the dark, without an impact on the results.
Consequently, they concentrated on the Pigment-dispersing factor or Pdf, the protein found in the brain.
Furthermore, the scientists, for the first time, discovered that Pdf controlled the protein's transcription which is also called, the "cAM response element-binding (CREB) protein."
As a result, they identified too, the particular molecular mechanism showing that indeed, light impacts the retention of LTM. Having gathered all the information, the scientists claimed that traumatic memories are quite hard to forget and can severely damage one's quality of life.
However, these new discoveries of the researchers present that such memories can, as a matter of fact, be considerably impacted by ecological aspects in any living creatures.
This then, opens the great and exciting possibilities of innovative treatments for trauma victims, possibly, even the ability to remove or erase traumatic memories which stop them from living normal lives.
